Slytherin Forever! Book One: Blood Ties

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Chapter Eight: Survival.

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Goodbye to you

Goodbye to everything I thought I knew

You were the one I loved

The one thing that I tried to hold on to

- Goodbye To You, Michelle Branch.

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St Mungo's Hospital For Magical Maladies, London.

"Please Mel," Catherine whispered. "Please wake up and make everything okay."

She put a slender hand on Mel's arm and sighed as she looked at her friend. The sheets were as white as snow and gave Mel's pale and thin complexion an extra ghostly look. Mel's lips curled into a smile just a little bit, but Catherine didn't jump up because she knew that this was very normal with comatized people. She realized deep inside that this just might be the last time she'd touch her friend or see her smile. The thought made her stomach churn.

"Life's no good without you, hun," she whispered into the silence. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she continued with her eyes directed at the ceiling: "Please open your eyes and tell me that you are going to be okay. The Zeppo needs you, the Slytherins need you, and so do I. I need you Mel, right here beside me, all right? Just survive."

"Ms. Fisher?"

Catherine looked up and turned her head into the direction of the kind nurse who smiled at her and motioned for her to get up. She did so, wiping her tears away with the back of her hand. She sniffed just once and released Mel's arm.

"We will need to take precautions for her... ahum... condition," the nurse continued. "Go home dearie, there is simply nothing that you can do here."

"I want to stay," Catherine choked. "If she never wakes up after this I want to hear it directly."

"She'll wake up."

A new voice, soft and melodic, startled both the nurse and Catherine. Two heads turned towards the doorway where a blonde woman stood, not smiling but also not crying. Blue eyes looked at Mel for a moment before turning back to the two women.

"Gudrun?" Catherine asked, and the woman nodded. "I thought that Heidi had told you to stay put wherever you were! You can't do anything for Mel, and you know it."

"Neither can you," Gudrun pointed out before continuing: "Someone's filling in for me right now at school in Finland. I wanted to be here, just in case. I wasn't with Lily when she died because I was in the hospital myself at the time, as you might remember. That's why I want to be with Mel today: because I might never see her again."

"I understand."

***

Hogwarts.

Finally the term ended and everyone started to look forward to Christmas. At least: everyone who was still in school looked forward to the feast meal, whereas others boarded the Hogwarts Express to spend the holiday with their families.

The Slytherin common room looked very cosy with the Christmas decorations, Ginny thought as she slumped down on one of the couches with a good book. Verice and Marcus Flint had decorated the entire common room and the dormitories, helped by Zeynep (at least... he thought he was helping but actually he just stood in their way).

The meals were spent at the far end of the Slytherin Table, away from mutters about their link to the Heir of Slytherin. Now that there were no classes to attend to everyone noticed that there were almost no fights among the different Houses anymore.

It was just Ginny's family that was causing her to feel miserable right now. Percy had taken to ignoring her whenever he saw her, the twins tried to scare her by jumping out from behind every statue covered with fur and boils, and Ron just looked like he wanted to slap her around her face. Ginny had received a tearstained letter from her mother a couple of weeks ago making her feel a bit guilty about getting into Slytherin.

"You know, the holidays aren't really a good time to think," a voice said suddenly. "You can wait with using your brain until classes have started."

Ginny looked up and smiled as she saw Zeynep standing there with two mugs of hot chocolate. He seated himself graciously and held one mug out for her to take, which she did gratefully. He drank a small amount of hot chocolate before leaning back expectantly and motioning for her to talk.

"What?" asked Ginny, half-grinning and half-serious. "I don't recall asking you to sit down and comment on my thoughts, mister Prefect."

"Who says that I am commenting?" Zeynep looked at her with one of his eyebrows raised before continuing: "I just want to hear what is making you look so sad."

"And then you'll comment," Ginny sighed. "I was just thinking about my family, that's all."

"That's all?" Zeynep repeated weakly. "Honey, the only people that I ever saw looking so sad as you do now were members of my family at the funeral of my grandmother. What's wrong this time?"

"It's just..." Ginny hesitated for a moment but continued as Zeynep nodded encouragingly. "My whole family hates me for being in Slytherin. My mother cried and said that I should change Houses, and my brothers either ignore me or try to scare me to death. That hurts, you know."

"I don't think they hate you," Zeynep said thoughtfully. "You grew up in a family full of Gryffindors, that's why it's so difficult for them to think of you as a Slytherin. Your mother would have expected you to get into Gryffindor too, that is why she cried and told you to change Houses. One of your brothers is a Prefect and therefore should know better than to ignore you but I think that the twins are just dealing with it in the way of scaring you to death."

"What about Ron?"

"There are no words to describe him with," was the answer. "You are his sister no matter what he says to you, and you shall return to your home this summer. Don't be afraid of him, and don't be angry with him either. He is just trying to deal with it, okay?"

"Why is it such a big deal to be a Slytherin?" Ginny asked angrily as she took a sip of her hot chocolate. "Nobody would act this way if I had been a Hufflepuff or a Ravenclaw."

"Slytherins are connected to evil," Zeynep replied. "Most members of our House are pure blooded maniacs with a love for everything dark and spooky."

"Is it because of You-Know-Who?"

"Most of it is, yes," Zeynep sighed. "But Grindelwald also had a large amount of influence on the Slyths. I think that we have been on the wrong side so much in the past that people hold on to their prejudices about us. Those people have never talked with us before or they'd know the difference between good and bad Slytherins."

"Some have talked with us," said Ginny, thinking of her family. "But still... those prejudices remain."

"I meant that they never really talked with us," Zeynep replied quickly. "Unless trading insults is called talking these days..."

"To Ron it is certainly a way of talking," Ginny laughed heartily. "I think that Draco is still winning, though. Must be the Slytherin spirit keeping him alive."

"I forget constantly that your family cannot stand the Malfoys. How did they respond to your little 'bond of friendship'?"

"I haven't told them yet."

Zeynep whistled softly and brushed his tiny braids back over his shoulder before grabbing a cookie from the table. He looked at Ginny questioningly and said:

"You do realize that you have to tell them sooner or later, don't you? If you don't tell them now they will go berserk when they find out."

"I realize that, yes," Ginny replied. "What's with your new hairstyle anyway?"

"Lya thought that it would be funny to braid my hair," Zeynep grimaced. "She did it this morning and said that I looked 'dead cute'."

"That's the way Natalya would have put it, indeed," Ginny grinned. "I think that it looks good, although I prefer them hanging loose."

"So do I, but I don't have the heart to tell her because it took her a while to braid them this way."

"I won't tell her either," Ginny said and put her hand on her heart. "You know, you seem nicer right now than you did before."

"I have a life full of stress," Zeynep smiled. "My OWLs are coming up soon and I have to learn loads. That is why I have been so ill-tempered lately."

"And yet you find time to help Lya with Charms," Ginny said accusingly. "You can't be that busy then."

"She is a fast learner."

They sat in silence for a while after that so that Ginny's mug was soon empty. Zeynep took a longer while and ate another cookie before putting his mug down on the table as well.

"I feel much better now," Ginny said with a hint of surprise in her voice. "Thanks."

"I think that it was the chocolate," Zeynep laughed. "It makes people feel better."

"It wasn't the chocolate," Ginny said after a short silence. "It was you, listening to me and talking with me. Thanks, mister Zabini."

"You are welcome, miss Weasley," was the reply. "Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go and see how Lya is doing with the Levitation spell."

He got up and walked over to Ginny's side of the table, making her look up at him in surprise. He kissed her forehead softly before walking out of the common room, not looking back at her to see her reaction. Ginny smiled and picked her book up again, this time looking as though all exams had been cancelled.

Christmas morning dawned, and the Slytherins were pleased to see that it had snowed. Ginny's presents included a handy pocketbook with spells from Alisha and a very cool photoalbum made by Verice and Zeynep, who had taken pictures of Ginny's friends without them knowing about it. There was also a hand-knitted Weasley sweater in the colors green and silver, making Ginny feel a bit better because now she knew that her mother hadn't forgotten about her.

No one could fail to enjoy Christmas dinner at Hogwarts. Ginny went down to the Great Hall and saw that the rest of the Weasleys were wearing their sweaters as well, and felt anger boiling inside as Ron scowled at her. Draco was making snide remarks about Harry's new sweater, until Ginny pointed out to him that she was wearing such a sweater as well.

"I am a real pig," Alisha said while rubbing her stomach. "Look at my plate!"

The others looked and saw that the blonde girl had piled a hoard of food on it even though she had already eaten at least a dozen chocolates that afternoon. Dev smiled at her and said:

"It is time for you to eat properly. All that rabbit food isn't good for you, as I already told you a thousand times."

"I don't want to gain weight," Alisha said through clenched teeth. "This is very bad."

"Women and diets," Zeynep sighed, earning a glare from Emmanuelle who was eating a carrot. "I am afraid that I will never understand that."

"Of course you won't," Natalya laughed. "You aren't a girl, are you?"

Zeynep looked horrified by just the thought of it, making everyone laugh even harder than they had done before. Ginny knew that they were attracting attention to themselves but she didn't care about that as much as she should have. Finally she put her head in her hands and started to laugh hysterically, making other students swivel around in their seats to look at the small group of Slytherins.

"Ow, my stomach," Marita groaned as she looked up to the ceiling. "I think that it is the weather doing this to me. If my father knew about this he would stare at me in disbelief before transferring me to Durmstrang."

"Durmstrang? If only you had gone there straight away," Natalya sighed and then continued with an icy undertone present in her voice. "You're only half and half, Rita, just like me. Stop being such an arrogant person all the time, it is very annoying."

"My blood's better than yours, Romanov," Marita hissed. "Stop talking, little girl, because you don't know anything about me or my family."

"I do," Zeynep said as he came to Natalya's defense. "Your father's family is just like the Blacks and the Potters once were: pure blooded prats with an arrogance to match You-Know-Who's."

Marita's eyes flickered with hatred for a moment before she looked down at her plate. Natalya gave a small indication of thanks to Zeynep, who nodded curtly and grabbed another chicken wing. Silence returned after that until Verice sighed and said:

"I wish that we could stop doing this. Blood doesn't count, how many times do I have to tell you that? And yet here you are, going on and on about whose blood is better and what families of blood other people can be compared to. I wish that you would just give that topic a rest because we all have wizards and witches in our family even though some of us are half bloods."

"My blood still counts higher than hers," Marita said with a slightly raised voice, pointing at Natalya. "I don't care about your blood ties, Verice Walters, because I know that you are pure. But Lya's, on the other hand..."

"For your information: my mother's blood ties run right back to the Tsar of Russia," Natalya replied angrily. "I wanted to give the topic a rest, but somebody obviously needed to point out to you that your arrogance is going over the top. And stop using my nickname because I only want my friends to call me Lya."

"Fine with me," Marita shrugged. "I don't need your friendship anyway."

"Can we stop now?" Ginny asked suddenly. "I am getting tired of all the bickering and the arguments, which include discussions about blood ties. It is Christmas, in case you hadn't realized."

They didn't talk much for the remainder of the meal until people started to leave the Great Hall to go to their common rooms. Marita was one of the first to leave, together with Pansy Parkinson, but Ginny stayed behind to talk to Draco and Zeynep about Quidditch. They left after a while but not before seeing to their utter horror that Crabbe and Goyle were still pigging out at the very end of the table.

They found the common room in complete and utter silence even though the Slytherins were conversing quietly with each other in the high-backed chairs those conversations didn't carry around so that the whole room could hear what they were talking about. Ginny, Draco, and Natalya seated themselves on one of the couches nearby while Zeynep went to his classmates to talk about the upcoming OWLs.

They had sat there quietly for a couple of minutes until Draco announced that he was going to look for his cronies, leaving Natalya and Ginny to talk about typical girl things. It took a while for Draco to return, so that Pansy was already fretting over another attack when he came back with Crabbe and Goyle in tow.

"I can show them the clipping, can't I?" he asked Ginny after Crabbe and Goyle seated themselves. "After all, it is not like I am going to insult every single member of your family."

"You can show them," Ginny responded softly. "They would have found out for themselves anyway sooner or later."

Draco disappeared to the dorms, only to return with a clipping cut out of the Daily Prophet. He handed it over to Crabbe, who laughed shortly and then handed it over to Goyle. After Goyle had read it he gave it back to Draco with a forced laugh.

"Mum couldn't have set the family ghoul on them," Ginny smiled. "It doesn't take our orders. And dad shouldn't be tinkering with Muggle artefacts anyway."

Crabbe's face contorted with fury, making Ginny look at him in surprise. He muttered something about a stomach-ache, which didn't come as a surprise at all while Draco continued as he seated himself:

"I suppose that Dumbledore is trying to hush those attacks up. Father's always said that old Dumbledore is the worst thing that ever happened to this place. That is a load of crap seeing as Dumbledore is very loyal to our House."

"People actually think that it is one of us this time," Natalya said softly. "Dumbledore would believe us if we told him we don't know anything."

"You must know something," Goyle said. "I mean..."

"I know what you meant," Ginny replied. "Everyone in the school, including Saint Potter and my very stupid brother, thinks that one of us is the Heir. But that's ridiculous!"

"If we knew who it was we would tell Snape or The Zeppo," Draco continued. "As I have already told you a million times, Goyle, I don't know who the Heir is!"

"If Harry and Ron believe others, so be it," Zeynep added as he seated himself next to Natalya, who leaned against his shoulder. "I don't like that Weasel anyway, with what he has done to our Ginny and all."

"What has he done?" Crabbe asked stupidly. "Nothing serious, I hope?"

"No," Ginny sighed heavily. "He just doesn't forgive me for getting into Slytherin, and it hurts me. I thought that I knew him, I thought that he would still like me, but how wrong I was in the end..."

Crabbe and Goyle jumped up suddenly and said something about a medicine for Crabbe's stomach before they left in a hurry, leaving the others behind. Natalya sighed, closed her eyes and soon fell asleep with Zeynep's arm around her while Draco and Ginny talked quietly.

Something strange was going on...

***

St Mungo's Hospital For Magical Maladies, London.

"And?"

Catherine hopped up and down as she looked at the doctor, who shook his head slowly. Gudrun walked over to Catherine and asked:

"Is she dead?"

"It will only be a matter of minutes before she is, yes. You may go and see her one last time, if you wish."

The two friends made their way down to Mel's chamber, Catherine with tears streaming down her cheeks, and seated themselves next to the friend they would soon lose. Mel looked peaceful, although her face was as white as the sheets and her breathing became irregular.

"This is it," Gudrun said softly. "Now it is just the two of us, and Shanna."

"Not yet!"

Catherine jumped up as Mel mumbled something and opened her eyes. They were bloodshot, but they had an unearthly gleam to them that suggested that she was alive. Her breathing was regular and she had a hint of a smile on her face.

"Hey, you two," she croaked. "How are you doing?"

"Mel?" Catherine asked in disbelief. "They said you were..."

"Going to die, so I heard," their friend laughed. "But it takes more than a vision to kill a Smith, you know."

"How did you survive?"

Gudrun asked quietly and Mel smiled at her. The doctor and the nurse came rushing in at that point because they had heard their patient laugh and talk, drowning out any further questions by exclamations about a miracle.

"I got some help from an old friend," Mel said to Gudrun as the nurse checked her temperature. "Lily obviously didn't want me to die."

"I am glad to hear it," Catherine said and relaxed completely. "But what did you say about a second Heir to Slytherin?"

"When I am out of here I shall tell you everything," was the reply. "That's a promise."

***

Hogwarts.

There came an abrupt end to the festivities as Hermione Granger went to the hospital wing and stayed there for several weeks. Zeynep assured the Slytherins that there hadn't been another attack, but that it was just a spell or potion gone wrong.

Ginny had stopped writing in her diary for a while now, but she picked it up one last time to say goodbye to the friend who had betrayed her and lied to her. And as she was walking towards a bathroom that was out of order she scribbled her farewell on the pages.

I am going to flush you down a toilet, Tom.

You cannot do that; my influence is too strong.

So you finally admit it, don't you? I have been the one attacking everyone, thanks to you. Way to go, Riddle.

Back to calling me Riddle, I see. You can run, little Virginia, but you can't hide...

Who says that I am going to run? Goodbye, Riddle, I won't miss you.

You won't miss me?

No, I won't.

She flushed the diary down the toilet and could have sworn that she heard someone scream inside her mind, before she walked out of the room again and smiled. And this time it was a smile that suggested victory and not defeat...

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